South East Water has today (30 August) issued its response to Ofwat’s draft determination.

This follows the publication of the draft determination by Ofwat in July to which it asked the company to re-examine a number of areas contained in the plan.

As the most ambitious business plan South East Water has ever produced, the plan challenged itself to deliver performance levels well beyond anything it has delivered historically and at an efficient cost.

Paul Butler, Managing Director of South East Water, said: “We maintain our plan is highly ambitious. The performance commitments we have set ourselves will be very challenging and are firmly rooted in our customer expectations of us.

“We have improved a number of our performance commitments as part of this process so that we address Ofwat’s challenge to us, and indeed all water companies, to collectively push the entire water sector towards stretching and in many cases upper quartile performance.”

The assessment of the cost of delivering the plan remains a major area of concern for South East Water. The company maintains that Ofwat’s draft determination would result in a significant reduction in funding that it has proposed to enable it to:

• Ensure water supplies are resilient to future challenges • Reduce leakage levels to levels never achieved before in the water industry• Provide the all-round service customers have told us they expect.

Paul added: “We have welcomed the challenge and scrutiny of our plan by Ofwat. It is an important part of the regulatory process to set prices for a business that provides an essential product and service.

“However, for both the Initial Assessment of Plan and Draft Determination stages we have meticulously reviewed Ofwat’s documentation and critique of our plan so that we are able to provide further evidence and/or justification for the decisions we have made.

“The document we have published today articulates why we are retaining the key components of our original plan.”